were
pleased to indulge." When he asked an hostler to call him
early in the morning, he was answered that--he might call
himself and be d----d. In the Western country he found no
symptoms of hospitality--witnessed only idleness and
licentiousness, and experienced every where brutal rudeness
and unbounded extortion. The western people usually combine
in cheating all travellers, and sometimes "_rifle_," that is
_shoot_ residents among them who do not choose to descend to
their own level. In Illinois "a party proposed to each other
_coolly_ to go and shoot neighbour *****, who had behaved
ill to them sundry times; it was agreed upon; they went to
his field, found the old man at plough, and, with unerring
aim, laid him dead." And Mr. Welby adds that the country
would be desirable to live in, did not the folks _shoot_
each other thus, and were they not half savages. The
_shooting_ case reminds us of a traveller's story which we
heard at a dinner table abroad. A gentleman and esquire of
strict veracity, like Mr. Welby, related, in order to shew
how common was the calamity of the _coup de soleil_, or
stroke of the sun, in the Island of JAVA, that sitting once
in the house of an opulent merchant of Batavia, drinking a
_cool_ glass of Madeira after dinner, with the merchant's
wife in the room, the lady was, in the twinkling of an eye,
_reduced to a heap of ashes_ by a _coup de soleil_; when the
husband observed to his guest, "don't be alarmed--we are
accustomed to this;" then rang the bell with great
composure, and on the appearance of the servant, _coolly_
said--"Boy--sweep your mistress out, and _bring us clean
glasses._"

In the neighborhood of Mr. Birbeck's settlement in Illinois,
Mr. Welby could obtain neither eggs, milk, sugar, salt, nor
water; and when he and his party sent a request to Mr.
Birbeck for some water, the answer returned was, he made it
a general rule to refuse every one. Mr. Birbeck is
represented as having deceived and disappointed most of the
English who were lured to his settlement by his "Journal."
Mr. W. could discover none of "the snug cottages, with
adjoining piggeries, cowsteads, gardens and orchards," which
Mr. B. had introduced into his canvass. He found nothing but
the primitive log building, that served the whole
family--"for parl